In modern vehicles it has become important to give the driver of the vehicle a personalized driving experience and the possibility to control various functions of the vehicle through, for example, input buttons, joysticks or knobs. The more control functions the vehicle is provided with, the more input buttons and/or input menus are present in the vehicle. The design of these input buttons and input menus is vital for a positive driving experience and is a task that involves the question of how the driver perceives matters like symbols and grouping of buttons in order to make the interface intuitive.
One trend is to collect and to display the most vital information in and around the driver's line of sight to help the driver keep his/her sight and focus on the road ahead of the vehicle as opposed to have to look down to search for a certain menu or display. Some vehicles have even been provided with parts of the displayed information being put on display on the windscreen, a so called Head-up display. Less important and more seldom used items may be placed further away from the line of sight, such as on a center column between the front seats. Input buttons, joysticks or knobs may also be provided on the center column or on or around the front door handles.
An often used location for input buttons or similar is on the steering wheel or in close proximity of the steering wheel, where the driver mostly holds the hands during driving, in order to avoid requiring the driver to unnecessarily remove them from the steering wheel.